


Attempt #58

by humansandotherpeople



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, attempted boss knifing, encounters in soul-sucking institution corridors, holding back your colleagues/friends from achieving their goals, with an illustration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:01:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22592182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humansandotherpeople/pseuds/humansandotherpeople
Relationships: Basira Hussain & Melanie King, Basira Hussain & Melanie King & Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8
Collections: The Magnus Archives Rare Pairs 2020





	Attempt #58

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KingOuija](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingOuija/gifts).



Basira closed the door behind herself, leaned against it, and sighed. She couldn’t bring herself to care that Elias could probably hear her, there in his chair behind his desk in his office on the other side of this thin pane of wood. It wasn’t like he couldn’t likely keep track of her frustrations anywhere else in the institute, too, if he could be bothered to.

She had just gone in to clear up whether her expenses for a trip to Stoke-on-Trent would be covered. He had even agreed to pay her overtime while she hunted down the suspected Leitner in Stoke, not just fares and accommodation. Nevertheless, talking to him was always unnerving. Him pretending to be a normal boss almost aggravated her more than when the facade slipped.

She was almost ready to abandon the calmingly sturdy support of the door and move on to the rest of her day – almost – when something came barrelling down the institute corridor.

At five foot and extremely scrawny, propelled by righteous fury and equipped with a glinting knife Melanie King was still a projectile worth reckoning with. Basira knew where she was headed, of course. She was standing right in front of it. Now this was a frustration of an entirely different kind.

Basira grabbed the arm with the knife as soon as it was in reach. Though entirely reflexive, this action was motivated by several things. Firstly, police academy instructions that had saved her skin – and Daisy’s skin, and a lot of other officers’ skins – a good number of times. Secondly, it being the most effective way of avoiding Melanie’s momentum driving her knife right into Basira, who was almost certainly nothing but a hefty obstacle to her in that moment. And a very far last was the fact that she didn’t actually think knifing Elias to death was a very good idea, tempting though the thought was.

Melanie tugged on her arm and waved her knife and muttered incoherently about a bastard – and of course Basira knew which bastard – and tried to reach the doorhandle, but for the moment, the bullet was stopped, the bomb defused. Basira was standing between Melanie and her target, and she was not going to get through her.

On the other hand, Melanie wasn’t going to stop struggling. That was just as clear. This wasn’t Basira’s first rodeo. And it did feel like a rodeo, with Melanie writhing in her grip, trying to kick at her shins and bite her arm. Leaving her to piece together her reasoning from sentence fragments and growling.

Basira did understand, though. How could she not? She was just as trapped as Melanie. If Melanie could only really free them with her knife and her restless energy.

Basira looked down at the balled fists and angrily creased forehead and bared teeth of her captive. Hers and Elias’s, the institute’s. A feeling krept up on Basira. The feeling that, if she thought about it too long, looked at Melanie too long, she might let her go and do what she wanted to do.

She couldn’t allow that.

“Daisy!” Basira shouted. Her friend should be two offices down, killing time until the next attack.

“Daisy!!” Basira yelled again, louder, but the former detective had already banged the door shut behind herself and was storming towards them with almost the same determination as Melanie.

She calmed down somewhat when she saw Basira holding Melanie.

“Oh. This again,” she said. Then she took Melanie’s other arm.

Basira breathed a deep sigh of relief. Together, they would be able to drag Melanie away from Elias’s office, and, once that was out of sight, convince her to let it rest for another few weeks. With Daisy there, Basira wouldn’t be tempted to let her colleague do something stupid.

Together, they would get through this.


End file.
